Kazakhstani Assault
by David Berliner
Target: A six story tower surrounded in safety by the walled compound of the ------- University campus. The property’s fortifications are only able to be breeched through two gates at the north and south wings, each with 24-hour rotating watches and anti-vehicle barricades at night. To circumvent the defenses, a restaurant built into the east wall provides a way to slip through (and grab a decent meal of Chinese food if you have the time). The tower itself has a LED-lit video buzzer system on front door, which is monitored from the foyer at all times. Each floor is watched by night-vision LED cameras in the stairwell lobbies and at far end of each primary hall. The fire escape is tightly chained shut when staff is not present. The computer center in the basement is locked by a high security keypad lock and bolt.
This cutting edge, consciously secured tower is a school. A foreign student dorm. My dorm. And no one gets in the front after dark if they are not a student here. I am situated on the second floor, in the back south-east corner. This makes it the farthest room from said video buzzer locked entrance on my floor. My balcony is directly above a tall fence protecting the first floor rooms from casual intruders.
Assault team: Three to five Kazakhstanis approximately aged between 18 and 24. The squad will be assisted from inside the tower by a mole in one of the study abroad programs on the upper floors. Intrusion skills include scaling, local dialect translation, tactical analysis and friendly coercion.
My intruders were not casual. They were on a mission and quite determined. All things considered, however, their mission objectives might make them the most casual home invaders of all.
Mission objectives:
Assault team:
Two weekends ago, Friday night. My friends and I decided we could not possibly bear another meal of rice, Kung Pao Chicken and whatever other alternating Chinese dishes we ate daily. To satiate our hunger for foreign food, we decided to take a couple taxis to a Mexican restaurant we’d found in That’s Beijing, the local expat mag. After a confused seven minute cab ride in which neither driver could tell where we wanted to go, we ended up at the restaurant, which actually was only a four minute walk away from our campus. A perfectly decent dinner was followed by chill conversation over iced litchi margaritas, raspberry or chocolate martinis and a custom mixed whiskey sour on the rooftop terrace of a classy hotel bar. Two hours and three rounds later, we headed back to watch a film in my and my roommate’s room.
Assault plan, first assault: Wait on a weekend night for the occupants of targeted room to come back from after-dinner drinks in the Sanlitun nightlife district. As the roommate and the squad of friends are distracted in a neighboring room by Facebook and web cartoons, planning their own nightly exploits, trap the primary occupant in the end of the corridor. Make him let you enter his room, using the broken speech of three languages to confuse him. Walk past the scattered water bottles, Chinese textbooks and dirty laundry to the balcony door and tell him that your friends are outside.
I open the door and look right to the main part of the terrace. “There’s no one there,” I say (in Chinese). He replies in shoddy English to look left, where I find two Eurasian-looking guys in hip threads helping a third up over the side. They filter into the room as two more start to climb.
“Um… you can’t… what…”
“It’s cool… Thank you. You understand. Thanks, man. The housekeepers won’t let us in to see our girlfriends. Thanks a lot.” Damn you, effective coercion techniques.
They introduce themselves and we have a short, awkward conversation with me speaking in Chinese (language pledge of doom) and them in bad English. They are also exchange students in a different study abroad program in the Chinese capital. They’re from Kazakhstan. Everything is fine and they are excitedly appreciative, each shaking my and my roommate’s hand as they leave.
I wander, still half in shock, out into the hallway. A friend, coming to watch the film we are about to play, enters the room with an odd stare and raised eyebrows. “What?”
“Um... Yeah, five Kazakhstanis just used my room to sneak into the building.”
“… Oh.”
Assault plans, second and third assault: Come back a couple weeks later, two nights in a row. Third assault has the special tactic of a 5:28 am arrival time. Knock on the outside door to wake up residents.
I am in my boxers sleeping right next to the window as the knock comes from the outside of the balcony. As my roommate opens the door, mumbling about how this is really too late, handshakes and thanks are effectively used again to coerce us into understanding. Hey, at least they have found love worth sneaking around for in this foreign city.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED